Red Shed Limited is one of the latest UK commercial printers to select the ECRM MAKO 4 CTP system. In fact, the Southampton-based firm can lay claim to being the smallest plate setter in the South of England operating a MAKO 4. Keith Vaughan, Managing Director at Red Shed, explains the motives behind their purchase, “The bulk of our work comes from printing takeaway menus, as many as 3 million per year, not many of which tend to be repeat jobs because of price changes. We found ourselves spending around £10,000 per year on film alone; we’d use almost £80 worth of film for each job. “The MAKO 4 has changed that now we can image direct to plates. We estimate that the savings created by the MAKO 4 will result in it paying for itself in less than five years.” Ken Tucker, UK Sales Manager at ECRM, comments, “Many small printers still believe that a move to CTP is out of their price range. But the experience of Red Shed shows how cost effective our CTP solutions are and the value for money that they represent.” So, it would seem that the MAKO 4 fulfils the usual requirements to improve profit margins by reducing costs. But what of the other advantages that Red Shed now enjoys? “As you would expect, our customers are demanding faster and faster job turnarounds. Before we got the MAKO 4 we would often have to wait as long as 24 hours for deliveries of film. Now a file can be sent electronically and on press almost straight away.” “The time savings are amazing, when we used films it could take anything over ten minutes to expose and develop each plate. It now takes two minutes. We can image plates on demand, the faster turnaround has almost turned us into an instant print shop.” As well as menu printing, Red Shed also has a number of corporate clients, so to reflect and maintain the high quality these clients expect, the firm had to be sure that they were making the right investment. “We spent a long time looking for a CTP system that was the best fit for our needs. We looked across the whole market, even using the internet. The MAKO 4 seemed like the best option for us and this was confirmed to us when we spoke to Filmtechnik. “The simplicity of the system impressed us from the start. Its small size and lack of moving parts means there’s less to go wrong. Most importantly it’s easy to operate and maintain, it feels like it has been made by engineers.” Keith concludes, “Both ECRM and their dealer, Filmtechnik, have been exceptional through the whole process. Nothing has been too much trouble. We can’t fault the product or the level of service we have received.”